Before launching an elearning project, these five key questions will help you select the LMS most suited to your training objectives.
An LMS that meets your needs
Implementing an LMS – Learning Management System – requires significant resources. Optimise the process by selecting the best solution, based on your needs, for greater ROI.
To do so, the client’s objectives and those of the training should be carefully determined. The market is large and full of new ideas: gamification, serious games, MOOCs, social learning, evaluation, etc.
Defining the company’s goals can help you select the LMS that best answers your needs. Here are 5 questions to ask:
1. What are your content needs, or standards you wish to achieve?
Where does the content come from? Does it respond to the business’s external or internal needs? In what format(s) will it be presented? Should it meet certain standards? (GxP, scorm, etc.)
If the company has content from the classroom, this can easily and efficiently be converted into an elearning module, along with reporting. Implementing an LMS focuses the attention on achieving a better distribution of training, not the content itself.
The project can then launch much more quickly and successfully. The savings can be invested to diversify content and improve training.
2. What are the project objectives?
An elearning project may have different aims: to train employees, facilitate their rise to power, certify knowledge, pre-assess employees, provide access to a knowledge base, etc.
Writing a detailed terms of reference allows you to identify the company’s specific needs for its LMS.
It is also possible to test the LMS before purchasing to understand how all the tool’s integrated options perform in real situations.
3. What are your assessment needs?
How will you assess your learners? Via a self-assessment or learning by doing, or do you need to skills to be certified? How often? Will you need the LMS itself to be evaluated by learners?
If the training is reimbursed by an accredited fund collecting and distributing agency, be aware that an accurate assessment of time spent on different trainings is requested.
Also read our study on the training evaluation practices in French companies (in French).
4. Who are your audiences?
Who does the training address? Your customers? Your employees? How many people are involved? What are their profiles?
An LMS should be adapted to the organisation of your business. It must be flexible enough to allow training programmes and groups of learners that reflect your business’s current structure.
In choosing your LMS, please read user reviews to understand the strengths of each system.
5. Do you plan to sell your courses online?
Would you like to monetise content and re-use it from one year to the next? From one training to another? Would you like to make them freely available, or for a fee, to external visitors?
These questions can orient you towards a provider who offers a good online course with an integrated sales system in the LMS.
